Roadmap to turbo-charging your business intelligence with AI

COMPANIES have been hearing about business intelligence for more than a decade now.

So far, it was about using data from across the business, mostly historical, to spot patterns and trends that could help plan for the future.

With the arrival of sensors, real-time data collection, the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), companies are taking business intelligence to a whole new level.

Those that stay ahead of the curve and turbocharge their business intelligence system with these new and emerging technologies will gain an advantage few in the industry will be able to match.

Here is a simple roadmap to help you get started with turbocharging your business intelligence now:

# 1 | Hire data science and machine learning experts

The first step to ensuring that your business has the capability to make the most of the data your business generates in real-time is to hire some data scientists and machine learning experts.

These professionals are in high demand in every kind of company today, be it manufacturing or hospitality or anything else.

Data science and machine learning experts can help you make sense of data by collaborating with your business managers to understand what the data means and how different sources and streams of data can be correlated to create meaningful insights.

# 2 | Look for challenges and gaps within your existing system

In the past, business intelligence helped companies understand how the business performed, how customers behaved, how suppliers reacted to orders, and the overall health of their finances and operations.

However, with real-time data, it is now easier for companies to understand how things perform — as they happen.

Leveraging important streams of data, from various sources, can help companies identify gaps and hence, find opportunities to add AI models into their business intelligence to proactively make improvements.

With the help of data scientists and machine learning experts, making changes to digital processes is fairly easier as well.

# 3 | Explore the world of bots

Part of making business intelligence more impactful is to make sure you are able to get the information and insights to people who can use them to make decisions — in a timely manner.

Using AI can help sift through the heaps of data that your business now collects, allowing you to spot incredible trends and patterns that could make a big difference to your plans and strategies provided managers get access to and understand this information.

While the professionals you hire to turbocharge your business intelligence team can create the insights, they can’t force your managers to query the results or look at dashboards. And that’s exactly why you must use bots.

Bots can be set up to provide useful information to certain teams or managers, prompted by events within your business intelligence tool, via common communication tools such as Slack, Facebook Workplace, or even your CRM.